Da Lat

Today we got a new bus that was with us for the next couple of days.
The Back seats were loaded with the bags ad we set off for the 9hour drive to Dalat which is high up in the hills.
On the way we stopped at a Village workshop where the weave cloth and produced many different kinds of brightly coulored cloths and silks which were then maid into garments. just behind the workshop we walking up to a small village to find the Chicken Monument – a huge stone chicken which was erected to remind the villagers of an ancient love story (which was highly complex and I cant remember it!) So instead we lined up in front of it and did a sort of chicken dance for photo's.
A little further up the road we stopped at a Tea and Coffee house which is grown in this area and tried some of the local brew's. The Coffee is drunk here Iced with condensed milk and is very very Sweet and not really to my taste but not bad if you ask for it straight black. The flavoured teas were 'interesting' The Artichoke tea being a specialty but not to our liking, but supposed to be very good for the body.
On nearing Dalat we stopped briefly at 'the Ghost House'. This building is on the outskirts of Dalat and is lit at night by single bulbs suspended in each room but has never been lived in as it is reputed to be haunted. No one has ever managed to stay in there a full night. We didn't go in so I didn't see any ghosts this time.
Our Hotel in Dalat was just on the edge of the town and we took the bus back into the centre and went to a French Style Restaurant for Tea and had really good food before returning to the hotel for the night.
The Next Morning we were up and after a quick breakfast took our bus out to see the sights of Dalat.
First Stop was the Crazy House. This was a house being built from the inspiration of a wife of one of the countries leaders. It seemed to be fusion of Disney and Dali and is still in construction. Strange narrow walkways, staircases, passageways and bridges interconnect various differently themed rooms. The official name is Hang Nga Guesthouse and gallery, but all the locals refer to it as the crazy house. It does not comply with any convention about house building, has unexpected twists and turns, roofs and rooms. Strange but interesting.
Back on the bus we went to a local waterfall beauty spot, however you do not walk down to it you ride down in 2 man 'sledges' that run on rails and you control the speed yourself with a brake handle. At the bottom after seeing the waterfall we got back on the sledges to get taken back up the ravine on a near vertical slope. They were so good we paid to do it a second time, (although this time we left loads of room between each of us and I hardly used the brakes at all until the bottom – much to Jenny's slight concern)
Back into the bus again and we drove over to a large Zen Buddhist Monastery which was perched on the side of a hill. The buildings and landscaping surrounding them were beautiful but we did not have long here as we had to jump in a gondola cable car just across the road which took us across a valley to meet up with our bus. The ride was very peaceful and took about 15minutes but apart from the view I could see no reason for it; there certainly wasn't any ski resort at the other end!
The bus then took us to the far side of Dalat to go and see some dancing on Music from the local indigenous Lat peoples. At first I was a little skeptical about this having sat through a few of these long winded not too interesting local culture sessions but this was really good. The music and dancing styles were a like a fusion of Polynesian and North American Indian and not at all what I had expected. They got us up to join in a few dances and then asked us to show some of ours, so the only thing was to retaliate with a rendition of "Boom, Boom, Do you want to be crazy?" which wend down very well.
By now it was the evening and we returned to the Hotel for a short walk around the town and market before meeting up at another local Restaurant for a meal and then going up onto the top floor to the 'Lounge', this was where locals were doing 'posh' Karaoke i.e. no words on a screen, just singing! The music was intensely loud and we didn't last too long before heading back to the hotel after a long day.